


You've Been Out on the Road with A Craving for Tar

by bertie456 (bertee)



Series: Bones: You're Lovely to Me [14]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertie456





	You've Been Out on the Road with A Craving for Tar

To say that Seeley Booth was freaked out would be an understatement.

Sitting in the driver's seat, he stared out at the road in front of him, trying to wrap his mind around the situation, with the same amount of success as a toddler trying to hug a sumo wrestler. Taking a deep breath, he decided to take it slowly, letting his brain adjust to one thing at a time, in an attempt to suppress the urge to leap out of the speeding car, laws of physics and certain death be damned.

He was in a car.

That wasn't really a surprise, since he spent a lot of his day in a car when he wasn't in the lab, at the Bureau or at a crime scene. Cars, he could deal with.

He was driving at high speed.

Again, the number of speeding fines he'd incurred over his lifetime indicated that this wasn't a particularly unusual occurence.

He was driving down an army landing strip.

Admittedly, this was slightly strange, but it _was_ for an experiment, and even he could see that, logically, this was the best place to come if you wanted to drive quickly in a straight line. The army didn't exactly share this opinion, but Booth was grateful for his partner's obstinate nature on this count, since it was she who had badgered the general into letting them use the land. And speaking of his partner...

He was sitting next to Brennan.

Once more, this was perfectly normal. He would drive, and she would sit in the passenger seat and antagonise him. That was their arrangement and it worked fine. He glanced over at her briefly, noting with slight concern that their usual arrangement didn't require safety glasses. His eyes traveled to the rear view mirror and he sighed at what he saw, hoping it had been a mirage.

Hodgins and Zach were sitting in the back seat. Also with safety glasses.

Now, this was out of the ordinary, but he could cope with it. He'd had squints in the car before, and as long as they didn't talk, chew, hum, whistle, sing, groan, breathe in an overly loud fashion or sneeze, he had no problem with them. Feeling confident, his gaze dropped to Brennan's lap and his attempts at a slow, methodical processing of his surroundings failed.

She was holding a pig.

A deceased pig.

A deceased pig wearing a miniature blue boilersuit.

Forcing his eyes away from the pig in the front seat, Booth looked in the mirror again, only to be confronted with two more pigs, identical right down to their carefully-made outfits. One lay on its back on Zach's lap, its trotters pointing skyward, while the other sat up in the middle seat, its piggy snout facing forward as though watching what was going on. Seeing its beady eyes looking at him in the mirror with an eerie air of omniscience, Booth snapped.

"Get that pig off my seat or I swear to God I'll shoot you all."

Brennan looked over at him, perplexed. "I thought killing was frowned upon in Christian ideology."

"It is," Zach chimed in from the back seat. "'Thou shalt not kill' is regarded as the fifth of the ten commandments by Lutherans and Roman Catholics, but is counted as the sixth by most other branches of Christianity and Judaism."

Gripping the steering wheel hard in frustration, Booth muttered under his breath, "I'm fairly certain God would make an exception in these circumstances." Before Brennan could say anything in response, he reiterated loudly, "Hodgins, move the pig."

Smiling in amusement, Hodgins lifted the pig from the center seat, holding it up and looking it in the eye, "What should I call you?"

"Bacon?" Booth suggested sarcastically, and Hodgins glared at him in the mirror.

"How would you like it if someone called you "Meat"?" he asked, clearly offended on the pig's behalf.

Booth rolled his eyes. "It's dead. I don't think it has an opinion."

"You told me to talk to dead people," Brennan helpfully contributed, falling back, as ever, on logic. "Why should pigs be any different?"

Her partner glanced over at her in disbelief. "Because they're _pigs_ , Bones. Naming a dead pig is not the same as visiting your mother's grave."

"Obviously," she said with a nod, and Booth's heart leapt at the thought that he might actually be getting through to her. This was abruptly quashed as she continued, "My mother already has a name. Maybe we should name the pigs, if only to make them easier to distinguish later."

Sighing, he relented. "Fine, you know, you just go ahead and name the pigs. I'm guessing you're going to call yours Jasper?"

She looked at him as if he was challenged. "I already have a Jasper." Lifting up the pig, she scrutinised it carefully, before announcing decisively, "Jemima."

"What? No, you can't call it Jemima."

"Why?" she asked, confused by Booth's sudden opinion on the name of her dead pig.

With a long-suffering sigh, he explained, "Because Jemima's a duck." There was silence in the car. "From the kids' books? Jemima Puddle-duck? Peter Rabbit?" Silence. "Beatrix Potter?"

"I know her! She's a wizard," Brennan interrupted triumphantly, a proud smile on her face.

Booth just shook his head. "That's _Harry_ Potter, Bones, and it's a he. _He_ 's a wizard." He looked over at the pig again. "Kind of like your friend there."

Brennan eyed the pig suspiciously. "Booth, wizards aren't real, and even if they were, I doubt they'd take the form of a pig."

Hodgins laughed. "I think he means your pig's a male, Dr Brennan."

She rotated the pig, seeing the telltale bulge in the blue fabric. "Oh." Realising the point of Booth's argument, she amended, "Not Jemima."

Seeing the speedometer climb past eighty, Booth kept his eyes on the road as he wondered, "Bones, I've been meaning to ask; why are they all wearing boiler-suits?"

Zach answered for her. "The friction between the victim and the road varies in accordance to the clothes they are wearing, and since Toby Marsh was found wearing a blue boilersuit, it was necessary to replicate those conditions in order to establish the most likely scenario for the marks on the bones."

Brennan simplified slightly, "When we push the pigs out of the windows, we need to examine the spread of the body as well as the direction and depth of the striations on the bone caused by the fall. Wind resistance and road positioning will make this different for each window, but we need to ensure we have done everything possible to match the original circumstances so that our findings will be admissible in a court of law, and that includes clothing."

Hodgins simplified further, "We dress the pigs up, throw them out and see which matches our victim."

"Got it," the agent said with a grateful nod. "Where'd you get the suits anyway? Please tell me that you can't buy this stuff on the internet."

"Angela made them," the entomologist replied, evidently proud of his girlfriend's talents as a pig seamstress.

Booth shook his head. "And here was me thinking she was the normal one."

"Hey, she clothes them, we send them out into the big wide world," Hodgins said with a grin. "It's perfect parenting."

"Yet another reason why you people shouldn't be allowed to breed," Booth stated firmly.

Hodgins looked offended. "Hey, John, Paul, George and Ringo Montenegro-Hodgins are coming into this world one day."

"You're naming your children after the Beatles?" Zach asked, bewildered, but the entomologist just shrugged in acknowledgement.

"Did you know that if you play the vinyl edition of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band backwards-"

"Whatever it is, I can go to my grave not knowing," Booth interrupted, receiving an annoyed grunt from the back seat. Ignoring him, he asked impatiently, "Can you not just get on with throwing the pigs out of the windows?"

"These types of injury could not have been sustained under one hundred miles per hour. The car needs to be moving faster before we can jettison the pigs," Zach instructed, leaning forward to peer at the speedometer. Unfortunately, as he leaned, his pig came too, resulting in the car swerving suddenly as Booth yelped at the feel of the cold clammy snout on his upper arm.

"Get that pig off me!"

Cowed, Zach and pig retreated to the back seat again as Booth glowered at him in the rearview mirror. "You put that thing anywhere near me and you'll be the one going out of the window, you understand me?"

Zach nodded, knowing that it wouldn't be possible for Booth to throw him out from the driver's seat, but not doubting the agent's ability to solve that particular problem somehow. Possibly by collusion with Hodgins.

Said entomologist chose that moment to suggest, "How about the Three Musketeers?"

Booth frowned. "What about the Three Musketeers?"

"As names for the pigs," he explained, as though it was obvious. "I call Aramis."

"Athos," Brennan chipped in, contemplating whether her pig looked like an Athos.

"Mine doesn't look like a Porthos," Zach complained, after having the same internal debate as his former mentor. "How about Snap, Crackle and Pop?"

"Mine's called Snap," Brennan and Hodgins both stated at the same time, before fixing each other with challenging glares.

Deciding to cut in before an argument started, Booth suggested, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?"

Brennan folded her arms. "Are you suggesting that one of these pigs is uglier than the others?" Booth gaped helplessly. "Which one? Which do you think is uglier?"

"Bones, I didn't mean-"

"Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll?" Hodgins volunteered with a grin.

"That's four things," Zach pointed out, clearly missing the triple nature of the well-known phrase.

"Sex, lies and videotape," he amended with a suggestive wink.

"I do not feel comfortable being in a car with a pig named "Sex"," the young man stated firmly. "Especially a dead pig."

Hodgins' smile widened at his discomfort. "I don't know, Sex the Pig has quite a ring to it."

There was a disgusted groan from the entire car, and Brennan chided, "Hodgins..."

He held his hands up in defence. "Just an idea..."

"How aout Larry, Curly and Moe?" Booth proposed.

The scientists seemed to consider this, looking appreciatively at their soon-to-be-roadkill companions. Eventually Temperance nodded, "I can see my pig as a Larry."

Booth chuckled. "Who says I was talking about the pigs?"

Her mouth dropped open and she slapped Booth hard on the arm. Before the agent could retaliated, Hodgins spoke up again, not wishing to die in a car crash because the driver was too busy fighting with his partner, "What about Huey, Dewey and Louie?"

"Those are ducks," Zach said with confidence, remembering his childhood spent watching cartoons and the many physical impossibilities he'd noticed in them from an early age.

Hodgins sighed. "Yeah, I know they're ducks, but I've run out of famous trios, so just go with it. I'm naming mine Huey."

"Mine's Louie," Temperance decided, absently patting the pig's head.

"I guess mine could be Dewey," Zach conceded, still not fully satisfied with the pig/duck ambiguity involved.

"Great," Booth said with a fair dose of sarcasm. "Well, we're at one hundred miles per hour, so go ahead and see if Huey can fly."

Hodgins pouted slightly, having grown quite attached to his pig, but wound down the window nevertheless. Holding the pig up, he said sadly, "Looks like this is where we part ways, buddy. But think of it this way, you've dedicated your body to science."

"Would you just throw him out already?" Booth said impatiently.

Sighing, Hodgins hoisted the pig up and lobbed it out of the window, calling with a chuckle, "Fly, my pretty, fly, fly!"

Everyone peered through the back window as the pig bounced along the concrete. Booth soon focused his attention back on the driving while the rest looked with interest at the spread of the remains and the possible fracture patterns involved.

Satisfied he'd got far enough away from the first pig, Booth looked at Zach. "Okay, kid, it's Dewey's turn to become roadkill."

Hodgins smirked, addressing Booth, "What are you, Count Duckula?"

"What?" he asked incredulously. "How am I Count Duckula?"

Brennan, of all people, answered him, "Well, you do seem very eager to send these pigs/ducks to their death..."

"Bones, do you even know who Count Duckula is?"

"No, but I'd assume, since the name is an amalgamation of Dracula and duck, that he would be someone who kills ducks." She pondered, before clarifying, "Possibly by vampirism."

Booth shook his head, partly at his partner's lack of knowledge and partly because squints were comparing him to a cartoon vampire duck. "No, Count Duckula is a vampire who _is_ a duck. But he's a vegetarian." Remembering the salient point of the argument, he added, "Oh yeah, and these pigs are already dead, so it's not like I want to kill them. Now could you please just throw the pig out before we get to the end of the landing strip?"

Zach didn't need to be told twice and Dewey quickly followed his brother, accompanied by a satisfied nod from the younger anthropologist as he rolled away.

As the window came up, Booth turned to his partner. "You're next, Bones. Send ol' Louie to that pigpen in the sky." Her brow wrinkled as she tried to fathom the meaning of a floating pigpen, and Booth simplified, "Just throw the pig."

Rolling her eyes at him, she complied, pushing the remaining pig out onto the tarmac with its brothers. Once the pig was clear, Booth applied the brake, bringing the car to a manoeuvrable speed before turning round and heading back up to the pigs as he asked, "What did they die of? I mean, did you kill them just for this, or were they already dead?"

Looking mildly insulted at the prospect of her being a pig-killer, she retorted, "No, they were already dead. Hereditary heart abnormality - it would have been a quick and painless death."

"You know, I always used to like the story of the three little pigs," Hodgins reflected from the back seat. "I mean, there they are, just three helpless little piggies trying to stand up against the tyrannical wolf, and they manage it by banding together and cooking him alive. It's kind of inspirational when you think about it."

Brennan and Zach made small "Hm"s of agreement, while Booth just looked between the three of them in disbelief. "What? No! It's not like the wolf did anything that bad..."

"Dude, he tried to blow down their houses."

"Yeah, but he didn't attack the pigs themselves, did he?" Booth defended.

"Well, he would've done," Brennan contributed. "He chased them, which is why they all had to run to the brick house for safety. The wolf wanted to eat the pigs."

"That's attempted murder at the most," Booth shot back, annoyed. "Not in any way punishable by the death penalty. It's not like he knew it was coming either; he just climbed down the chimney and boom, boiled to death by the pigs. No chance to defend himself, nothing. For all we know, the poor guy could've been trying to return something one of the pigs had dropped."

This declaration was met with silence, and the squints regarded Booth with a mixture of confusion, disdain and pity in the light of his impassioned defence of the wolf.

Eventually Hodgins spoke up, "You know, in some versions of the story, the wolf eats the first two pigs."

Booth considered this, then shrugged, "Okay, if he's a serial killer, he's allowed to be cooked."

As justice was restored to the fairytale world, the SUV pulled to a stop by the remains of Brennan's pig, Louie, and the squints disembarked enthusiastically, followed by a slightly less eager Booth, who preferred his bacon in a sandwich, not liberally spread across concrete. He loitered by the vehicle as the others moved among the remains, taking pictures and retrieving various bones for comparison back at the lab.

They clambered back into the car sooner than he'd expected, and he slid back into the driver's seat, asking curiously, "Is that it? Is that all you want?"

His partner nodded. "This is all we need from each pig to determine which of the windows the victim was thrown through."

Starting the engine, Booth looked at the remainder on the ground with distaste. "The general is not going to like this."

She shrugged. "I told him that the FBI would take care of it."

"You what?"

Temperance looked at him, wide-eyed with genuine innocence. "I said that the FBI would clean it up. That is what usually happens at crime scenes."

"This isn't a crime scene, Bones! This is a bunch of squints throwing pigs out of cars for kicks!"

"Actually, it was to establish the exact location of the murder and corresponding identity of the murderer," Zach corrected, quickly falling silent when Booth shot him his most menacing glare.

"Like I said, for kicks." He waved his finger at her in annoyance. "I can't get a clean-up unit out here; it's not even human waste. You're going to have to do it."

The innocent look remained as she protested, "But we need to get back to the lab and analyse these striations. The suspects can only be held for another two hours, so we need to find out who pushed the victim out of the window as soon as possible."

"But- But-" Booth stammered as he tried desperately to concoct some argument that would prevent him from spending his afternoon scraping bits of Babe off the landing strip. "But can't you just come back after you've done that?"

"The general wants the strip clear as soon as possible." She looked at him with a hint of apology in her eyes. "You're going to have to do it."

There was a snort of laughter from the back seat, and Booth slammed his foot on the brake a little harder than necessary, causing the car to jerk to a stop by the next pig.

Brennan moved to get out, saying helpfully, "You might want to do it sooner rather than later, since the flesh will warm up in this heat and it'll be harder to remove."

Zach too opened his door, adding knowledge gained from experience, "Spatulas can be quite effective in prying off stubborn tissue matter."

Booth sat still, shell-shocked by the sudden bombshell that not only was he supposed to act as the driver while squints threw dead pigs from his vehicle but that he was required to clean up after them too. His shoulders slumped at the thought, and he heard Hodgins' door swing open behind him.

Grinning, the entomologist clapped a hand on his shoulder, saying with feigned sincerity, "Be sure to collect all of Huey. I want to give him a proper burial."

The door was slammed shut before Booth could reach his holster.


End file.
